Time for another Sunday Sermon, otherwise known as a rant!
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First it was Cyprus where the bankrupt government tried to steal money right out of people’s bank accounts. If you want to read that again click here and here.)
Then it was the turn of the greedy bureaucrats in Australia who decided to tax pensions TWICE, once when you put the money in and again when you tried to take it out! (For the original post click here.)
Now in bankrupt Spain the politicians are at it, however, this time they aren’t proposing to steal some of the money in your bank account – oh no, this time they want to steal your entire home!
Yes, you read it right, the Spanish government has announced this past week that they want to seize homes that have been foreclosed on by banks and developers.
Not that I have any sympathy with the banksters, not by a long chalk! But theft is theft, and theft by governments is perhaps the most evil of all simply because the victims have little or no remedies available – other than pack up and go somewhere else.
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As usual the politicians and bureaucrats are trying to dress this theft up as something helpful. They say they will rent the confiscated foreclosed homes to Spanish families who will be allowed to live there rent-free for up to three years.
Sounds great, but as usual what these political morons have failed to do is think their policy through.
If they go ahead with this plan to steal homes the consequences will not be what they think.
First of all it will destroy what is left of the mortgage market in Spain because no one will want to make home loans on Spanish real estate if there is no viable foreclosure mechanism should things go wrong for the mortgagee.
Second, it will go a long way to killing off the buy-to-let sector, which is the thing that has been keeping the real estate market afloat in these financially strained times. Home sales, not just in Spain, but in many countries have been boosted considerably by cash rich investors picking up what they consider to be ‘bargain’ properties at a level that yields a decent return on their capital. Where will they get that return if the government kills the rental sector by renting out homes for free?
And third, it will also kill off the recent Spanish drive to attract foreign investors by offering residency to anyone who spends around $200,000 buying up the glut of Spanish property currently on its real estate market.
If these things were happening in Zimbabwe or even Venezuela everyone would be calling it a disgrace. But it is happening in Europe and Australia and America. And it will get worse the more desperate the politicians and the bureaucrats become as they make the mess they created worse, not better.
Yes folks, sadly, the idiots have invaded the state organizations in Florida too.
And they are doing what they do best - inflicting needless misery on ordinary decent people.
This time the victim is a teenage girl, Kiera Wilmot, who has been expelled from her school and was arrested and charged with causing a totally harmless “explosion” by mixing household products in a plastic bottle.
The incident happened when she and another pupil of the school, mixed up some common household products in a plastic bottle – having heard that something amusing might result.
They did it outdoors on school premises. The resulting “blast” was not even sufficient to rupture the plastic bottle, merely popping off the top and generating some smoke.
Unfortunately for the luckless teenager, however, an idiot was at hand in the form of an assistant principal. He called the police and idiot number two, the responding officer, phoned idiot number three, a state prosecutor (named in the police report as Assistant State Attorney Tammy Glotfelty).
Isn’t it strange they way they all know each other – there must be a Secret Idiot Network, a bit like the Masons, that you are asked to join when you are deemed to be stupid enough!
Idiot three, the Assistant State Attorney, also known as a “R-Q’er” or “Regulation Quoter”, advised that Kiera be charged with “possessing or discharging weapons or firearms at a school sponsored event or on school property” and “making, possessing, throwing, projecting, placing or discharging any destructive device”.
As a result, local education officials (idiots 4 thru whatever), decided that Kiera had to be expelled from school.
Now the poor girl will have to try to complete her education in an “expulsion program”, and faces the future stigma of a serious criminal conviction.
In case you are wondering, Kiera’s killer cocktail consisted of nothing more than toilet cleaner and aluminum foil, so if you have either or both of these in your home - and I bet you do - then I guess if the wrong idiot came along he could charge you with having bomb-making materials! Never mind, they say the weather is nice and warm at Guantanimo.
Prior to her career as a bomb-maker, Kiera had never been in trouble. Even her school principle, Ron Pritchard, told WTSP News, “She is a good kid. She has never been in trouble before. Ever.”
Ron, in my opinion, you would be a lot better off getting rid of that idiot assistant of yours who started all this nonsense, rather than a good student.
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If, having read this, you feel the urge to help Kiera, there is an online petition addressed to several relevant local officials that says:
Please, do the right thing. Drop these charges and apologize for the incredible turmoil you have created.
My blog friend Frank over at A Frank Angle came up with the idea of doing a post based on an alphabetical listing of a selection of his previous posts. An interesting idea and a good way to introduce more recent readers to some of the things they might otherwise have missed.
Of course, Frank couldn’t leave it at that, so he threw out a challenge for others to try to do the same for their blogs. And guess who couldn’t resist the challenge!
So here you are, for new and long term readers of this blog, a alphabetical journey through some of the files of Fasab!
Enjoy.
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A is for….
Awkward Moments, (Part One, Part Two and Part Three), a short series of amusing anecdotes of times when things didn’t go quite right.
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B is for….
Banksters, one of my perpetual hate figures and the subject of numerous rants such as this one
Classifieds, a long running series of funny classified ads that turned out rather differently to the original intent, for example Part Three and Part Fourteen
And also for factoids about Chocolate and Coffee which people seemed to enjoy
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D is for….
Dogs. I make no secret of the fact that I am very fond of dogs, and German Shepherds in particular. You won’t get a better or more loyal companion and friend. I’ve done several doggie posts, this one has been the most popular,
And for Dear Abbey, no blog like this would be complete without a few letters from Joe Public seeking advice for some of their most disturbing problems.
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E is for….
Education, the lack of, as evidenced by these student exam answers, Part One and Part Two
And also for Emergency Room, some amusing anecdotes from the medical world.
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F is for….
Facebook, in particular the disastrous launch of the company on to the stock market which inspired the longest alliterated blog post title so far
The Great Escape, a short story aout an intrepid group of construction workers held hostage by Saddam Hussein before the outbreak of the first war with Iraq
And also for a Glass Of Milk being raised in tribute to Samuel J Porcello, the man who made Oreos what they are today.
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H is for….
Has to be for The Late Great Mr Harry Meadows, an old fellow whose efforts to spice up life in an English nursing home didn’t quite work out as intended.
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I is for….
I Miss Him, and I Miss Him Two, a nostalgic look back at some of the wonderful statements of President George W Bush.
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J is for….
The Journey, an eight part story of an eventful and amusing journey from Dublin, Ireland to the Caribbean, by way of Miami, Florida. This was one of the first things I wrote for this blog and published before there was much viewing traffic
A Long Love Affair, a short story about my own geeky love affair with computers during the past few decades.
And for Lost In The Fog, a short story about Tommy who managed to get completely lost in the field beside his house.
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M is for….
The MilPost Blog Award, another thing inspired by Frank who was the first blogger to receive this prestigious award only given to those few bloggers who have posted 1,000 times or more on their blog. If you know of anyone who is eligible to receive it please let me know.
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N is for….
Numbers, an on going series of factoids about numbers and their meanings and associations, that has surprised me in the numbers of people viewing them. So far the most popular number is Twenty-Three 23.
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O is for….
One Small Step For Man, a tribute on hearing of the death of Neil Armstrong the first man to set foot on the Moon. There are differing views on how Mr Gorsky fared, but I hope he did okay!
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P is for….
No, you’re all wrong. P is for my loving tribute to the wonderful invention knows as Peanut Butter.
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Q is for….
Quiz Show Answers, a very funny and long running series about the dumb answers given by contestants on various TV and radio quizzes over the years. Like this for example,
Revenge Of The First Graders, part of a short series of guess the logo quizzes, apparently kids can recognize about 200 of these by the time they are ready for the first grade!
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S is for….
Stupidity, one of the foundation stones of this blog. No one is immune, especially not politicians and lawyers.
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T is for….
Tarzan and Travel Agents, both of whom made an appearance on the fasab blog.
Versatile Blogger Award. Actually that should be ‘awards’ the first nomination from Alex way back when this blog was barely two months old, and subsequently from Sunny and Wendy. The Fasab blog has also been nominated for the Illuminating Blogger Award (Kenton), Sunshine Award (Wendy again) and the Kreative Blogger Award (Nabdip). My sincere thanks to everyone who though this blog worthy of nomination and I will get round to doing a proper awards page I promise.
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W is for….
Word Play. Yes, you were right, just in the wrong place. I like puns and they feature almost every week somewhere in my blog. So like them, or hate them, or like to hate them, or even hate to like them, you’re sure to find some here.
Zero, there are no ‘Z’ posts on this blog, unless the ones that put you to sleep reading them!
I suppose I could have used some of the quiz or puzzle posts, but that’s a bit of a cop out.
I hope this means that Fasab has yet to reach its zenith.
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So that’s it, the Fasab A – Z. Feel free to click any or all of the links that take your fancy, and, as always, enjoy!
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Frank has asked me to remind everyone that no nominations are required to take part in the A2Z challenge, so why not have a go. It’s a bit of work, but fun too, and it gives you the excuse to look over some of your old posts.
The details are on Frank’s blog. To go there, click here!
The original title of this post was “Farting On Airplanes” because it is really about farting on airplanes, but I thought it might be better just to call it “It’s An Ill Wind”.
No, come on, now you know don’t turn your noses up, or pretend this is something that (a) you’ve never thought about, or (b) never done. Farting on airplanes is an international phenomenon that transcends all nationalities, religions, ages, creeds, classes and colors.
It is in fact the common bond of all the world’s travelers.
Whether it can ever bring us closer together, however, is another thing (Phew!)
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This is a quite embarrassing story. Not something one would normally admit to, but people write unusual things on blogs.
It concerns one of the first long haul flights that I was ever on.
Nowadays, as a seasoned flyer, I always have a good meal before the flight. I don’t suffer from air sickness of any kind and I don’t care for the stuff they call airline food. Back then, however, I was a novice and ended up on board without any breakfast other than a cup of coffee. My stomach was empty – of food anyhow.
All was well for about twenty or thirty minutes and then it started.
The obvious solution would have been to get up and go to the toilet. But easy options aren’t the way I have gone through life so far.
Also it was a big plane, a 747, and the toilets were quite a bit away from my seat. I would face a long walk down the narrow aisle.
Not that the walk itself was the problem. It was just that whoever designs airline seats has arranged things so that the nose and ears of the person sitting down is just about at the same height as the bottom of the person walking casually past.
You see the predicament?
In any case, I found myself in a window seat with two other seats to negotiate before I got to the aisle. Such was the pressure building up that I feared the exertion of hopping over the additional seats would make the whole purpose of the journey somewhat redundant.
There was nothing for it but to stay where I was, with the unfortunate choice being either bursting or releasing some of the pressure. Not unnaturally I chose to do the latter option.
As these things go it was a substantial outcome. But the drone of the plane engines (they were a lot louder in those days, I think, I hope, weren’t they?) seemed to drown out any other background noises.
I didn’t hear a thing.
I double checked by having a quick look at the person unfortunate enough to be sitting beside me, but there was no sign in the expression on his face that anything untoward had happened. Either that or he was a professional poker player with a practiced deadpan expression – or in a state of semi consciousness as a result of the concussive force emanating from the seat beside him.
My confidence grew. I thought of the famous campfire scene from Blazing Saddles and let a few more go in tribute.
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I was so happy at the relief and at the fact that all was undetected that I allowed myself a triumphant smile, and then even a laugh. The movie I was watching was a comedy so my laughter didn’t look out of place either.
It was all good.
Hang on a minute.
All was not as good as it seemed.
Cut the laughter and cue serious worried face.
I suddenly realized that all this time I had been wearing the headphones the flight attendant had given us for the movies they were showing. No wonder I had heard nothing!
Oh dear me! What had I done?
Well, I knew what I had done, of course. The big question now was, did anyone else know? Had they heard me doing it?
I looked again at the man in the seat beside me. Again no perceivable reaction on his face that indicated that anything out of the ordinary had happened, although now I was aware of them I saw that he too was wearing the headphones.
I was relieved a bit, but still very curious. And when I get curious about something I have to try to find an answer.
So there was nothing for it but let rip again, this time with my headphones off.
And that’s what I did.
Thankfully, in the interests of the scientific experiment now under way, the quality of the offending item had not diminished in force. A guy knows about these things even without any audio feedback.
To my great relief, in every meaning of the word, I still didn’t hear a thing. The drone of the airplane engines had indeed drowned out any other sounds.
It was a magnificently liberating experience and from that day on I have never looked back, as it were.
Further experimentation revealed that the same undetectable result could be achieved even on much smaller airplanes. Commercial jets I’m talking about, of course, this is not a sport to indulge in on a single engined Cesna or something like that.
I also found out that it is possible I have been saving the airlines lucky enough to win my custom a small fortune. As you know the air in airplanes these days is all re-circulated and, as the methane content of a fart is lighter than air, the captured gas therefore contributes to keeping the airplane airborne with a consequent saving on fuel. That’s my story anyhow.
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And the good news just keeps on coming.
Independent research confirms that a person’s sense of smell is greatly suppressed in the reduced cabin air pressure, which incidentally is also why airplane food tastes so bad.
So now if you are on an airplane and sitting beside someone who is chuckling to himself – or herself, yes ladies your secret is out – you’ll know the real reason why!
You couldn’t exactly call yesterday “Black Friday” the way financial pundits like to do, but that traditional “safe haven”, gold, certainly lost a lot of its shine.
In fact the price of gold went into freefall, plunging the best part of $100 an ounce in a massive selling spree and ending up below the magic $1500 mark for the first time in a while.
I don’t think anyone is sure yet just what triggered the almost panic sell off on the Comex, but my gut feeling is that, once started, the computer generated trading gizmos used by the big hedge funds etc., kicked in big time and made matters go from bad to worse.
These automatic trading monsters trigger sales when a pre-chosen stop loss figure is reached, one stop loss sell off triggers the next and so on until there is a massive market plunge, as happened yesterday. The same could just as easily happen on the stock market.
What most ordinary folks don’t realize is that the majority of traders in the financial markets are idiots. They just hang around looking at their screens and then follow whatever they see happening. It’s the herd mentality syndrome. When the big boys start to sell then the little boys follow suit and the whole thing goes from bad to worse, often without anyone really knowing who started it or why it is happening.
That seems to have been the case yesterday as there were no catastrophic economic indicators, like major inflation fears, currency collapses, etc., to trigger a significant movement one way or the other.
Whatever caused it, it is a warning to investors to be cautious. It could be a blip or the harbinger of turbulent times ahead.
Although there are many doom-and-gloom merchants with their “the end is nigh” web sites urging their followers to dump paper money, fiat currencies they call them, and stock up on gold, the truth is that gold has not been a good investment in recent months and years.
By definition the very worst a good investment should do is hold its value in line with inflation – if it doesn’t you are losing value.
For almost two years now gold has been steadily falling in value. Anyone who bought, for example, in August or September 2011 has seen their investment fall significantly in value – down by more than twenty percent in fact. You put $10,000 in, you get less than $7,900 out, and the dealers take their cut both ways.
So will the bear market for gold continue or was Friday just a glitch? Well, if you could answer that one for certain you would be able to make a lot of money.
My feeling, for what it’s worth is that the price will probably fall further. Maybe not so dramatically as yesterday, but it could easily trickle downwards to the $1200 region.
That assumes no dramatic sell offs by bankrupt governments and banks, because that is definitely a last resort measure that they would be most reluctant to take. If or when it does happen it means BIG financial trouble for everyone.
So will gold ever be a good investment again?
Warren Buffet never thought so, but it could be. Possibly a very good investment. But probably not a long term hold. Many western economies are just hanging together at the moment. The amount of debt and insolvency has to mean that at some stage the normal investment vehicles like currencies, stocks, bonds etc., will start to suffer and people will turn back to “safe havens” like gold.
IF you buy at the right time, and remember that you need to get rid of it and fast when the cycle turns again, you could do very well. But I wouldn’t jump in and buy it just yet.
When I was a kid one of the things I loved to do was to go over to my cousin’s house at night during the winter months when it was dark. He lived out in the country on a farm – and he had a telescope. It wasn’t an expensive one, but it was a lot better than anything I, or any of my friends, had so to me it was great.
Many evenings we spent looking at the moon and the stars. It fascinated me then and it fascinates me to this day.
I never did get a telescope of my own. For one thing anything decent was always a lot more than I could afford when I was a kid and for another as I grew up so did the town where I lived. To the extent that there was so much ambient light from street lights, lights in houses and buildings etc., that there was very little left to see.
When I was in Las Vegas I did make a few trips well out into the Nevada desert which provided some fantastic results. You really have no idea just how many stars are out there until you can view them from somewhere very remote. (BTW, I think what I saw were all stars, but with Area 51 and all that, you’re never really sure. Cue some Twilight Zone music!)
So how much better would it be if you had telescope actually out there in space?
Well for the past few years we have, and it’s a LOT better as you will see.
But enough of an intro from me. There are other bloggers who can write with much more knowledge and passion about these things, such as Alex at Things I love, so I’ll sign off and let you look at some of the Hubble photographs that I though were worth sharing.
And whether you believe in Creation or that it is all the chaotic result of a big fart that came from nowhere, enjoy the wonder and beauty of what is out there.
My father, who I loved and respected deeply, passed quite suddenly many years ago one August 12th. Now don’t worry, tissues not required, this isn’t going to be one of those sentimental posts as you will see in a moment, just setting a principle.
You see ever since that day I always know that when August 12th comes round that is the anniversary of his passing. Not that I do much to commemorate it or anything, but every year – same date – that’s it.
So why am I talking about something that happened in mid August now at the end of March?
Well, because they tell me this weekend is Easter and that always messes with my logic circuits.
Easter is a day that is honored by nearly all of contemporary Christianity to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which took place on the third day after his crucifixion at Calvary.
So here’s a simple question.
If someone we know dies on a certain day of a certain month that date remains constant, it does not change, the anniversary is the same every year.
So why do we celebrate the Resurrection (death plus three days) of Jesus on such wildly varying dates?
For example in 2011 it was April 24th, last year it was April 8th, this year it is March 31st and next year it will be April 20th.
The only way that makes sense, is if the date we are told to celebrate has as little to do with the Resurrection and Christianity as have eggs, bunnies or candy.
It doesn’t seem to matter any more in America and many other western countries because the powers that be are intent on abandoning their Christian ethos for fear of offending those who refuse to abandon their religious beliefs. They are quite happy with the confusion.
It is, however, fairly clear if you do even a little bit of research on the subject, (and I encourage you to do your own research and not take my word for it), that most of the things people now commonly associate with Easter have in fact pagan, rather than Christian, origins.
And the pagan roots of Easter lie in the worship of pagan gods and in celebrating the spring equinox, which marks the end of winter and beginning of spring. Biologically and culturally, it represents for northern climates the end of a “dead” season and the rebirth of life, as well as the importance of fertility and reproduction.
References to a similar holiday have been found as far back as 2400 BC (that’s ‘B’ as in ‘before’ ‘C’ Christ) when, for example, the city of Ur apparently had a celebration dedicated to the moon and the spring equinox which was held some time during our months of March or April.“Ishtar”, which is pronounced “Easter” was a day that commemorated the resurrection of a pagan ‘god’ called “Tammuz”, who was believed to be the only begotten son of the moon-goddess and the sun-god. In other cultures he acquired different names, including “Osiris”, “Orpheus”, and “Dionysus”.
The Phrygian fertility goddess “Cybele”, was one of the most popular of these pagan gods, and worship of “Cybele” started in Rome around 200 BC. Ironically, a cult dedicated to her was even located on what is today Vatican Hill.
Even today modern Wiccans and neo-pagans celebrate “Ostara,” or “Eostre” which are derived from the Anglo-Saxon lunar goddess, “Eostre”.“Eostre’s” feast day is held on the first full moon following the vernal equinox – a similar calculation as is used for Easter among Western Christians. On this date the goddess “Eostre” is believed by her followers to mate with the solar god, conceiving a child who would be born nine months later on Yule, the winter solstice which falls on December 21st.
Two of “Eostre’s” most important symbols are the hare (both because of its fertility and because ancient people saw a hare in the full moon) and the egg, which symbolized the growing possibility of new life. Each of these symbols continues to play an important role in modern celebrations of Easter.
So Easter, like many other things the establishment encourages us to believe, is not quite what it purports to be.
I’ll leave the last word to someone smarter than me,
One of my blog friends, Kenton over at the Jittery Goat, wrote a post recently as part of the daily prompt series about the first book/story he read that gave him an interest in reading and writing. His choice was a good one, “To Kill A Mockingbird”.
On a few occasions I have been asked the same thing and it is a very good question to put to anyone who is interested in either reading or writing or both.
When I was growing up the main influence as regards reading and writing was school. I’m sure that is the same for many of you. I was both fortunate and unfortunate here.
For a few years I had an excellent English teacher. Someone who was interested in the subject she taught, but someone who was equally interested in passing on her enthusiasm for reading and writing to her pupils. She was a great teacher and a great influence on her pupils. One could not but develop a taste for English literature, for exploring other writers and for writing too.
Now for the bad news.
As happens in schools, as you progress through the grades sometimes your teachers change. And unfortunately mine did.
I got lumbered with the most awful teacher there has probably ever been. Another woman, but this woman was one of those self-absorbed dullards who would probably have made any subject the most boring and tedious thing in the world.
She could take the most exciting story and just drain the life out of it. With poetry she did the very same, just killed it stone dead with her monotonous voice and her complete lack of feeling for the subject.
Watching the proverbial paint drying or concrete setting was real exciting stuff compared to this woman’s classes!
The result?
Sadly, for a few years she turned me, and I would guess almost all her pupils completely off both reading and writing. I will never forgive her for that.
However time passed and although I’m not sure how exactly it happened, I got the urge to start to read again. Perhaps to ease myself back into it I decided to start with some short stories rather than a long book or novel.
And what a great choice that turned out to be.
The first story I read in my new life as a reader once again was called “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge”. It was a tale set during the American Civil War and was written by Ambrose Bierce, who himself was a veteran of that war, and a gentleman of whom you will hear a lot more in future fasab posts.
And so I have been reading and writing ever since, mostly for my own amusement and occasionally, as in this blog, also for the amusement of others.
I’d be interested to find out what you make of this story so I have reproduced it below. If you are unfamiliar with it, or want to refresh you memory if you have read it before, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy.
And when you are finished let me know what you make of it.
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AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE
by
Ambrose Bierce
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A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners–two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain.
A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as “support,” that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest–a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.
Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground–a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators–a single company of infantry in line, at “parade rest,” the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock.
A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.
The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good—a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well fitting frock coat. He wore a moustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.
The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace.
These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgement as simple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his “unsteadfast footing,” then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!
He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift–all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality.
He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by– it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each new stroke with impatience and–he knew not why–apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the trust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.
He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. “If I could free my hands,” he thought, “I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader’s farthest advance.”
As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man’s brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.
II
Peyton Farquhar was a well to do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with that gallant army which had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in wartime.
Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South, no adventure to perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.
One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.
“The Yanks are repairing the railroads,” said the man, “and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order.”
“How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?” Farquhar asked.
“About thirty miles.”
“Is there no force on this side of the creek?”
“Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge.”
“Suppose a man–a civilian and student of hanging–should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel,” said Farquhar, smiling, “what could he accomplish?”
The soldier reflected. “I was there a month ago,” he replied. “I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tinder.”
The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.
III
As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened–ages later, it seemed to him–by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity.
They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness — of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river! — the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible!
He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface — knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. “To be hanged and drowned,” he thought, “that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair.”
He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort! — what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor!
Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. “Put it back, put it back!” He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire, his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!
He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck.
He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf–he saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass.
The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies’ wings, the strokes of the water spiders’ legs, like oars which had lifted their boat — all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.
He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.
Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.
A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again looking at the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears.
Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning’s work. How coldly and pitilessly — with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquility in the men — with what accurately measured interval fell those cruel words:
Farquhar dived — dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.
As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther downstream — nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually.
The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning:
“The officer,” he reasoned, “will not make that martinet’s error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!”
An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken an hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.
“They will not do that again,” he thought; “the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me–the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun.”
Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round — spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men, all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color — that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream — the southern bank — and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of Aeolian harps. He had not wish to perfect his escape — he was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.
A whiz and a rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest.
All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman’s road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.
By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famished. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which — once, twice, and again–he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.
His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them.
His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue — he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!
Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene — perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forwards with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon — then all is darkness and silence!
Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.
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If you prefer to listen while you do something else, here is an audio version of the story:
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An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, narrated by Robert Englund, part one of four
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An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, narrated by Robert Englund, part two of four
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An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, narrated by Robert Englund, part three of four
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An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, narrated by Robert Englund, part four of four
When I sat down at my laptop this morning I was going to do another selection of obituaries, many of which I find very amusing whether that was the originators’ intention or not.
But then one thought led to another and I remembered little Jimmy, so now this post is about him.
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Little Jimmy lived in the town where I was born. He was small, about five feet tall or possibly 5 foot 1, no more than that. He wasn’t what you would call stupid, but he was definitely a bit odd – a few cents short of a dollar you might say. Clinically I think he probably had a mild case of autism. He was our own little Rain Man, you could say.
When I was a kid Jimmy would have been in his late 50s, but he acted more like a kid than a grown up. And as I grew up Jimmy didn’t. When he was in his 70s he was just the same and acted just the same. He always wore a big pair of leather army boots and a Crombie type overcoat, even in the summer. Both were slightly too big for him. I think someone had probably given them to him.
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To earn himself some cash little Jimmy would do odd jobs and errands for people around the town. He was honest and reliable. And people were generally good enough to him, letting him do things they could easily have done themselves. Sometimes they would get a bit of harmless entertainment out of it too.
I remember one occasion a friend of my Dad’s had a bicycle with a puncture. Rather than wheeling it all the way to the bicycle store, or fixing the puncture himself, he called little Jimmy over.
“Jimmy, I need you to take my bicycle to Joe,” he instructed, Joe being the bike shop owner. ”And tell him,” he went on, “that the puncture is either on the back tire or the handlebars.”
He also handed him a couple of dollars and away little Jimmy went with the bike.
Sure enough we found out later from Joe that little Jimmy had arrived with the bike and duly announced to the shop and its customers that, “You’re to fix Billy Simpson’s bike and he doesn’t know if the puncture is on the back tire or the handlebars.”
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But apart from his odd jobs, little Jimmy had three real passions in his life, delivering newspapers, collecting lost golf balls and attending funerals.
My Dad used to say that Jimmy was the oldest paperboy in the world and we should write to the Guinness Book of World Records. Of course we never did, but we enjoyed the joke all the same. And we enjoyed watching him collect his newspapers.
The scene never changed.
When the newspaper delivery van arrived at the newsagents the guy would open the back doors of the van and lift a bundle of papers to take into the shop. That was the cue for little Jimmy to make his way into the shop in front of him.
“Let the man through, let the man through,” he would shout with great urgency, at the same time pushing his way to the shop counter and scattering all the real kid newspaper boys out of the way as he did so.
It was chaos. But, as if by magic, this always got little Jimmy to the counter first and meant that he got the first lot of newspapers all to himself. Like I said, you couldn’t really call him stupid, just a little bit odd!
However, these semi-violent outbursts aside, when he wasn’t collecting his papers Jimmy was a gentle soul and everybody liked him. He was a fixture of the town, a real character, the type of people that don’t seem to be around any more, mores’ the pity.
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He made some extra money for himself with his second passion, collecting used golf balls. In fact he had quite a successful business going. As soon as it was daybreak little Jimmy was on the golf course and searching in the rough and long grass for lost balls. Luckily for him the local golfers mustn’t have been much good, except at slicing, because there seemed to always be an endless supply of wayward balls.
Little Jimmy collected thousands of them, cleaned them up and then sold them back to the golfers, all of whom knew Jimmy and were happy to pay him. His price was substantially below new cost so everybody got a good deal.
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However, little Jimmy must have taken Yogi Berra’s advice literally (see opening quote of this post) because his main passion became attending funerals. He went to every funeral in the town, whether he knew the person or not.
Not only that, but he kept a journal and logged the date, the time, possibly the number of people attending and so forth. It was one of those overly excessive obsessive qualities that makes me think now that he was probably autistic.
For bigger funerals, and although he couldn’t drive and never had a car, he also took it upon himself to direct traffic into and out of the cemetery. And he could be quite cross and demanding with the drivers as he was doing it.
It was thinking about the obituaries and funerals and such that led me to write this post because it was at the funeral of one of the town’s ‘big-wigs’ that my best and everlasting memory of little Jimmy occurred.
A lot of people had gathered up for this particular funeral. The guy had been a prominent businessman in the town for many years. Everyone knew him and respected him and therefore naturally wanted to pay their final respects by attending his funeral. There were probably also one or two who were there just to be seen to be there. No matter, it was a big turnout.
Eventually the mourners, including me and my Dad, made our way to the cemetery and sure enough little Jimmy was there, directing and organizing the cars. And there were a lot of them, not only because of the number of people but because it was a wet autumn morning.
Everything was wet including the ground around the graveside. Muddy and very slippery too. Luckily we hadn’t far to go, the open grave was just at the edge of the car park.
Little Jimmy was still directing the traffic. The more cars the more frustrated he seemed to become, anxious for the whole thing to start so that he could make the relevant entries in his journal.
“Come on, come on,” we could all hear him shouting impatiently at the drivers, as he waved them left and right and forwards into the few remaining parking spaces.
And then it happened.
As almost the last parking space was being filled, and little Jimmy was hurrying things along as best he could, he was walking backwards signing with his hands at a car in front of him to guide it. His concentration was focused solely on the car in front of him. He had no idea what was behind him and what was behind him was the curb at the edge of the car park. Just beyond that was about two feet of wet muddy grass that marked one end of the open grave around which we were all gathering for the interment.
No, little Jimmy didn’t see the curb behind him. Nor did he realize what it was when he tried to take another step backwards but found he couldn’t.
I watched the whole thing take place, knowing what was going to happen yet thinking somehow that really it wouldn’t. But it did.
Little Jimmy’s momentum backwards knocked him off balance, his feet left him and he sat down rather fast and very hard on to the muddy patch of grass.
If he had left it at that he would have been okay I think, but of course he didn’t. Shocked by what had just happened and trying to get up again as quickly as he could – the way we all try to do as if nothing has happened – he put his hands out behind him to push himself up on to his feet again.
The trouble was there was nothing for his hands to lean against, just the space of the open grave.
I never will forget the look of complete bewilderment on his face as his hands disappeared from view and then, pivoting on his backside, his head and shoulders disappeared too. In part of the same not so graceful movement his legs shot up into the air momentarily and then quickly slid down out of sight into the open grave to join the rest of him. The last that was seen were the big army boots which somehow added to the comedy.
It was truly one of the funniest things I had ever seen in my life and despite the solemn occasion I found it impossible to hold back the laughter. Thankfully several others were similarly afflicted which helped to take the bad look off me.
Jimmy was so short that he had no chance of ever getting out of the grave on his own. It would have been near impossible even for a much taller person because of the conditions. And so the fiasco continued.
Concerned citizens realizing what had just happened went to assist little Jimmy. A few of them almost meeting the same fate as their dress shoes were no match for the mud and they slithered dangerously close to the chasm in front of them. There were a few flailing arms and funny dance steps and ‘Ali Shuffles’ as they tried to retain their balance, all of which didn’t help me regain my composure.
Eventually little Jimmy was hauled out of the open grave, a bit wet and dirty - like a drowned rat, my Dad said later – but apart from a bruised ego, not much the worse for wear.
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The whole debacle didn’t put him off. The next funeral little Jimmy was back with his book making notes. He didn’t have the same enthusiasm for traffic duty though.
Not too many years after that little Jimmy attended his last funeral – his own. No body bothered to log it into a journal, but for an ordinary little guy a surprising number of people made the effort to be there. And some of them, like me, had smiles on their faces.
Safe and secure is the wish of all of us and we pay other people to make sure that we are. In fact in today’s world hundreds of thousands of people are employed one way or another in the security business.
Looking at the macro-side of it, despite the fact that we all hate being treated as suspects when we go to the airport, most of the time the security people seem to get it right. After all, although many have been planned, there have been very few successful terrorist attacks since the infamous 9-11 in New York City and The Pentagon.
Nevertheless we have to be vigilant and cautious no matter where we are in the world. This is particularly so for American citizens and government employees, who are potential targets overseas.
Even in the most unlikely of places.
On July 31, last year, for example, Norwegian Police blocked off the area around Oslo’s royal palace following the discovery of a suspicious object beneath a nearby automobile outside the U.S. embassy.
The embassy was evacuated.
So was Norway’s royal palace and part of downtown Oslo.
Authorities even temporarily suspended subway service.
An international children’s soccer game was canceled at nearby Voldslokka Stadium so that the field could be used to land helicopters close to the embassy.
The Oslo bomb squad, emergency services and other agencies responded to the bomb alert. They examined the ‘device’ but were quickly able to determine that it was in fact a fake, much to the relief of everyone.
However, the incident then raised further questions.
Who had been responsible?
How had the perpetrators managed to breech Embassy security and plant the device, even a fake one?
It wasn’t too long before an “Oh, oh…” was heard.
Keen to make sure everyone was alert to the possibility of an attack, security staff at the U.S. embassy in Oslo had carried out a safety drill earlier in the week. That safety drill had included placing fake bombs on vehicles to rehearse their emergency-response operations.
However, they forgot about one of the ‘bombs’ and a few days later the practice bomb was spotted on an embassy vehicle as it tried to enter the embassy grounds just after 11 a.m. The eagle-eyed security guards on duty leaped into action and the bomb alert was declared.
Of course the officials concerned apologized for their mistake in leaving the fake bomb, regretting any disruption caused by this incident, and essentially calling a bomb scare on themselves.
